Brendan Rodgers, Luis Suarez, Raheem Sterling, Daniel Sturridge, Tom Ince. What’s the connecting line? Liverpool of course, as the manager, doubted by many as to his level of control on the club’s spending and direction in the transfer market, calls for a different financial approach regarding the spending policies.

No more waste, that’s the bottom line. While it looked like both Daniel Sturridge and Tom Ince were on their way to sign for for Liverpool when the January transfer window opens, the deals don’t look so certain now. The Sturridge deal, which is rumored to cost £12 million, is now being halted for financial reasons. Too many agents trying to get a hand on the money, with future transfer fees and where exactly they go the main problem at the moment.

Same goes for Blackpool and Tom Ince. Liverpool thought £4 million should be enough, but it looks like the seasiders want more for the player they signed for only £500,000 from Liverpool. Liverpool might not be the biggest name in football anymore, but their name, and knowing of their rich American owners and their mistakes during their first year on the job, simply adds numbers to any potential transfer negotiation.

When you here Rodgers speak of financial sanity, you move back to the summer. Rodgers loaned out Andy Carroll and was left with only Luis Suarez and Fabio Borini to use as his strikers, which seems pretty weird knowing that he loves to play with three players up front. This has all sorta exploded in Liverpool’s face, with Borini breaking his leg and Luis Suarez becoming the next Liverpool player to have the entire team depend on him.

Rodgers thought he was going to get money to sign a striker in August, but was denied. He didn’t do much complaining about it, as Liverpool went on to deliver their worst start in decades, but you could feel the grumpiness here and there. Rodgers later said that January will be about improving the team, but not at any cost.

That’s the simple message for any player coming here – you can’t take the money and run. You have to earn the right to play for this club and to help us succeed. The club are really on board with me on that. It is part of what we need to be successful again. You trace back over many years at this football club and they have brought hungry players in. They were also good players, but they were all hungry.

When you’re in the middle of the table and with no Champions League football in sight, it’s hard to attract the best footballers in the world, especially when you’re not offering the kind of money Manchester City did when they began their slow rise to the top, which hasn’t been completed yet when you look at the broader goals.

Liverpool have the same goals, but after getting burnt with Andy Carroll, Stewart Downing and Jordan Henderson, there’s a good chance that Rodgers doesn’t really believe all this “wise financing” philosophy, but knows he can’t do much about it. For now, with Liverpool struggling to make the European push that was promised, he should focus more on football anyway, limited as his squad might be.